Iraqi abuse key figure convicted

David S. Cloud, New York Times

Published 4:00 am, Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Photo: JEFF MITCHELL

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U.S. Army PFC Lynndie England leaves the courthouse at Fort Hood, Texas, September 26, 2005 after being convicted on charges stemming from her involvement in the Iraq Abu Ghraib prison scandal that surfaced last year. England faces up to 10 years in prison and will be formally sentenced on Tuesday. REUTERS/Jeff Mitchell Ran on: 09-27-2005
Pfc. Lynndie England, after her conviction at Fort Hood, Texas. Ran on: 09-27-2005
Pfc. Lynndie England, after her conviction at Fort Hood, Texas. less

U.S. Army PFC Lynndie England leaves the courthouse at Fort Hood, Texas, September 26, 2005 after being convicted on charges stemming from her involvement in the Iraq Abu Ghraib prison scandal that surfaced ... more

2005-09-27 04:00:00 PDT Fort Hood, Texas -- Pfc. Lynndie England, a 22-year-old Army file clerk whose smirking photographs came to personify the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, was convicted Monday of joining in the abuse when she posed next to detainees who had been stripped and forced into humiliating positions.

The jury, made up of five male Army officers, found England guilty of six out of seven counts of conspiracy and maltreatment of Iraqi prisoners, including an episode in which she was photographed holding a strap tied as a leash around a naked detainee's neck. She faces up to nine years in military prison.

After the photographs came to light last year, senior Pentagon officials initially sought to characterize the scandal as an aberration carried out by rogue military police soldiers on the prison's night shift. Since then, the Army has opened more than 400 inquiries into detainee abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan and has punished 230 enlisted soldiers and officers.

What happened at Abu Ghraib differed from many other abuse cases because the prisoners involved were not under interrogation. Normally housed in a tent city reserved for suspected common criminals, they were taken into the prison building as punishment after a riot broke out.

There, they encountered what England's former boyfriend, former Cpl. Charles Graner Jr., who testified during the trial, called a "bizzaro world" in which the normal rules of discipline seemed to be suspended.

Because the photographs showing England were especially shocking and numerous, she in many ways became the face of the scandal, even more so than Graner, who was convicted in January of helping to orchestrate the abuse and who admitted during testimony in this case that he had struck a detainee.

Standing at attention in her Army dress uniform, England remained stoic as the verdict was read, as she has throughout the five-day trial. The trial's sentencing phase begins today.

Faced with the evidence in the photographs, her defense attorneys never sought to deny that England had participated in the mistreatment. After the verdict, her attorney, Capt. Jonathan Crisp, sounded unsurprised at the conviction.

"I guess the only reaction I can say is, 'I understand,' " he said in brief comments to reporters.

Although appeals are possible, the conviction closes the main chapter in the Army's prosecution of nine reservists who were charged with mistreating prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Two others, including Graner, who held the rank of specialist at Abu Ghraib, were convicted in trials, and the remaining six reached plea deals.

England, who is from West Virginia, had sought to plead guilty to the charges in May in exchange for a reduced sentence. But the plea deal collapsed that month after Graner testified that the treatment of the prisoners had been legitimate and that she had participated at his request.

That led the military judge overseeing the case, Col. James Pohl, to throw out the plea deal, ruling that Graner's testimony contradicted England's admission of guilt.

Other than the conspiracy count, England was not convicted of any misconduct other than "wrongfully posing" in photographs. Witnesses who testified in the trial disagreed about whether Graner had directed her to pose with the detainees. One witness said he had. Another said he could not recall his doing so.

In closing arguments Monday, prosecutors described England as an enthusiastic participant and displayed poster-size enlargements of the photos, including one in which she pointed at an Iraqi's genitals.

"What soldier wouldn't know that that's illegal?" said Capt. Chris Graveline, the lead prosecutor. "She is enjoying, she is participating, all for her own sick humor."

Crisp had urged jurors to acquit his client, saying she had participated in the mistreatment because she suffered from an "overly compliant personality" and had been under the influence of Graner, whom prosecutors have described as an instigator of the episode.

Graner, who was demoted from corporal to private, is the father of England's 11-month-old child; he has since married another reservist, Megan Ambuhl, who pleaded guilty in the scandal.

"The entire case, what this has always been about, is authority," Crisp said. "Pfc. England's blind compliance toward authority and her lack of authority in any context."

He added that England's history of depression and learning disabilities contributed to her willingness to join in. "She was an individual who was smitten with Graner, who just did whatever he asked her to do," he said. "Compounding all this is her depression, her anxiety, her fear."

But jurors seemed more interested in whether commanders at the prison had ordered the abuse or issued rules barring such treatment. In questions passed to the judge, they asked repeatedly about the direction that superiors at the prison provided to guards.

Several witnesses testified that they had had little guidance, but the defense did not present any witnesses suggesting that the abuse had been ordered by superiors.

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After the verdict, England's attorneys argued unsuccessfully that she should be allowed to call as a witness during the sentencing phase Capt. Ian Fishback, a former member of the Army's 82nd Airborne, who has alleged that soldiers in his battalion routinely beat and abused Iraqi prisoners at a base near Fallujah in 2003 and 2004 to gather intelligence and amuse themselves.

Crisp said calling Fishback might shed light on where England and others at Abu Ghraib had learned the methods they used against prisoners there. But the judge rejected the defense lawyer's request.

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